this is definitely my favorite of the candlekeep adventures I've looked over so far! running it in a few weeks for a party of two brand new players and two relatively experienced ones. I think I'm going with the "a friend went missing and this was the last book they pulled" approach. can't wait to see how they go about this! thanks for the great overview :)
From first read through this one stuck out as my favourite Candlekeep mystery. I'm going to drop a modified Feywild version of the quest into my campaign soon.
I had a great time playing this adventure. It felt like we skipped over a bunch (which we did apparently), but that kind of added to the feeling of a larger world. Word of advice, having someone with healing spells.
11:40 I thought rather than them taking HP damage, it would be like in the which like carnival where you take custard damage. When you're not really getting hurt, as much as having a limit on what you can take.
Thanks for the great video. One thing still bogs me: It's a spa and they give you complementary bathrobes. So, some (if not all) players would probably want to remove their armors and get comfortable. But this means that they would not have all their abilities and equipment if they decide to poke around and unintentionally get in a fight. How can they keep their equipment?
Or you could even give them a challenge of finding and retrieving their gear from where the employees of the spa would store them. (Probably what I would do, unless a player requested to try to hide some of their equipment) Hell, I'd allow any of the options provided previously. It'd all depend on what my players would want to try :3
Thank you all for answering. What I ended up doing was really initiated by the players themselves. They've asked for their weapons and armors to be brought to their room at least and that was where they later got ready for late-night shenanigans. All worked out in the end before I do anything :D Thank god for the player freedom in D&D :))
Ran this last Saturday. No Combat due to the guards at the servants quarters failing a save. The group just stole all the paintings. I ran it as a former five star spa trying hard to keep it four star rating. Only fly in the potion was one person brought in a 10th level pc. Which I had to allow due to Adventure League rules. If you can I would allow 4 to 7th level pcs to run in this. And give all the guest list starting locations.
Here's how I'm gonna run this adventure as part of my Forgotten Realms sandbox campaign: The party is friends with the famous author Volo and recently, after returning home from their last adventure, they learned that Volo isn't in town right now because a fan invited him to stay the winter in Silverymoon. After a few more adventures and spring coming around, a mutual friend tells the party that Volo send him a magical message that he's in trouble. The party goes to investigate. In Silverymoon they're told that Volo left a few weeks ago, wanting to swing by the Temple of the Restful Lily on his way back home. But Volo never arrived at the temple because he got kidnapped by a drow raiding party on his way there (I'm trying to run Out of the Abyss the opposite way around). So the party probably ends up at the temple looking for Volo and while there, they get involved in everything that's going on
Thank you so much :)) I'll probably be running this campaign for a one shot. Probably will leave out a bunch of npcs as otherwise it will just take too long for one evening, i fear. But it seems like such a fun adventure! I have one question: how do they battle the medusa? When they avert their gaze do they not see anything? Or like 10 feet around them?
I would say that you would need to avert your eyes if you are within 30 ft of the Medusa! Any closer than that, they either avert their eyes, giving their attacks disadvantage and the medusa advantage on her attacks against the PCs, or the PCs continue to look and must make DC 14 Con saves!
@@NoFunAllowed it says about averting the gaze: "it can't see the medusa until the start of its next turn, when it can avert its eyes again. If the creature looks at the medusa in the meantime, it must immediately make the save" I like your idea, but i wonder if it captures the "can't see the medusa" enough? If i imagine people fighting a medusa and averting their gaze, their vision must be severely comprimised. I just wonder how one could translate that into battle. But your suggestion sounds practical, so i might use it :))) thank you!
I don’t think this works well as a one shot Too sandbox-y for a one-shot But, a cool concept that can be integrated to a campaign Like if your curse of strahd party tpk’s around level 5, u can run this location and once they r out of it they find themselves in the land of Barovia ^^
Some one shot adventures can be sandbox-y. I've been running all the Candlekeep adventures into one campaign. My party completed this adventure in one 6-hour session.
I really appreciate you doing this video but just a friendly pointer - you say "go ahead" every five words. Try to keep that in mind for your next videos, it made it a little difficult to follow...
ive always had that problem in life. if its not one phrase on repeat, its another haha. I am definitly getting better with time, I just need people to call me out on it haha!
this is definitely my favorite of the candlekeep adventures I've looked over so far! running it in a few weeks for a party of two brand new players and two relatively experienced ones. I think I'm going with the "a friend went missing and this was the last book they pulled" approach. can't wait to see how they go about this! thanks for the great overview :)
Thank you! It's a blast to run, can't wait to see more of it!
From first read through this one stuck out as my favourite Candlekeep mystery. I'm going to drop a modified Feywild version of the quest into my campaign soon.
Heck yeah, that sounds awesome!
This is very helpful. Though the "Go aheads" did start to grate on me eventually
curse you american education system haha!
This is the one I've been hyped for. I love Mark Hulmes and high rollers. I just knew he'd write a great story
it is an awesome adventure, and I cant wait to run it multiple times to get so many different results!
I had a great time playing this adventure. It felt like we skipped over a bunch (which we did apparently), but that kind of added to the feeling of a larger world.
Word of advice, having someone with healing spells.
for sure! always leave them wanting for more haha!
11:40 I thought rather than them taking HP damage, it would be like in the which like carnival where you take custard damage. When you're not really getting hurt, as much as having a limit on what you can take.
haha fair fair!
Thank you! Running this soon!
Heck yeah! Hope you have a good time!
Thanks for your great insight 💙
thank you!
Thanks for the great video. One thing still bogs me:
It's a spa and they give you complementary bathrobes. So, some (if not all) players would probably want to remove their armors and get comfortable. But this means that they would not have all their abilities and equipment if they decide to poke around and unintentionally get in a fight. How can they keep their equipment?
they could decide to change back into their gear, they could use improvised weapons, or maybe they even hide some of their gear under the robes!
@@NoFunAllowed These are all good ideas. Thank you
Or you could even give them a challenge of finding and retrieving their gear from where the employees of the spa would store them. (Probably what I would do, unless a player requested to try to hide some of their equipment) Hell, I'd allow any of the options provided previously. It'd all depend on what my players would want to try :3
Thank you all for answering. What I ended up doing was really initiated by the players themselves. They've asked for their weapons and armors to be brought to their room at least and that was where they later got ready for late-night shenanigans. All worked out in the end before I do anything :D Thank god for the player freedom in D&D :))
The obvious trick is to bargain with the Hags for old age so the curse then reverses to make your character super young.
we're going real big brain here haha
Ran this last Saturday. No Combat due to the guards at the servants quarters failing a save. The group just stole all the paintings. I ran it as a former five star spa trying hard to keep it four star rating. Only fly in the potion was one person brought in a 10th level pc. Which I had to allow due to Adventure League rules. If you can I would allow 4 to 7th level pcs to run in this. And give all the guest list starting locations.
Awsome stuff! A heist is always a great time!
Here's how I'm gonna run this adventure as part of my Forgotten Realms sandbox campaign:
The party is friends with the famous author Volo and recently, after returning home from their last adventure, they learned that Volo isn't in town right now because a fan invited him to stay the winter in Silverymoon. After a few more adventures and spring coming around, a mutual friend tells the party that Volo send him a magical message that he's in trouble. The party goes to investigate. In Silverymoon they're told that Volo left a few weeks ago, wanting to swing by the Temple of the Restful Lily on his way back home. But Volo never arrived at the temple because he got kidnapped by a drow raiding party on his way there (I'm trying to run Out of the Abyss the opposite way around).
So the party probably ends up at the temple looking for Volo and while there, they get involved in everything that's going on
Thank you so much :)) I'll probably be running this campaign for a one shot. Probably will leave out a bunch of npcs as otherwise it will just take too long for one evening, i fear. But it seems like such a fun adventure! I have one question: how do they battle the medusa? When they avert their gaze do they not see anything? Or like 10 feet around them?
I would say that you would need to avert your eyes if you are within 30 ft of the Medusa! Any closer than that, they either avert their eyes, giving their attacks disadvantage and the medusa advantage on her attacks against the PCs, or the PCs continue to look and must make DC 14 Con saves!
@@NoFunAllowed it says about averting the gaze: "it can't see the medusa until the start of its next turn, when it can avert its eyes again. If the creature looks at the medusa in the meantime, it must immediately make the save"
I like your idea, but i wonder if it captures the "can't see the medusa" enough? If i imagine people fighting a medusa and averting their gaze, their vision must be severely comprimised. I just wonder how one could translate that into battle. But your suggestion sounds practical, so i might use it :))) thank you!
Fun fact: I (Justin) have Candlekeep Mysteries but I haven't opened it once yet XD
you should haha, its a great read, with lots of awesome set pieces and themes!
@@NoFunAllowed
I don’t think this works well as a one shot
Too sandbox-y for a one-shot
But, a cool concept that can be integrated to a campaign
Like if your curse of strahd party tpk’s around level 5, u can run this location and once they r out of it they find themselves in the land of Barovia ^^
this adventure slots extremely well into a bunch of adventurers!
Some one shot adventures can be sandbox-y. I've been running all the Candlekeep adventures into one campaign. My party completed this adventure in one 6-hour session.
I really appreciate you doing this video but just a friendly pointer - you say "go ahead" every five words. Try to keep that in mind for your next videos, it made it a little difficult to follow...
ive always had that problem in life. if its not one phrase on repeat, its another haha. I am definitly getting better with time, I just need people to call me out on it haha!
I ran this adventure last night and didn't see this video first. Man I really mispronounced a lot of NPC names. I give this adventure a 4.25 out of 5.
haha a DM never mispronouncines things, their word is law!